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Duty of Candour is the legal requirement for all NHS providers to be open and honest with patients and their families if something does not go as planned which may cause harm. Duty of Candour must be applied to any incident where moderate or greater harm has been caused. This involves:
- Telling the patient / their family when something has gone wrong
- Apologising to the patient / their family
- Including the patient and their family (if they wish) in the review of the incident and share the report if they wish to see it.
Below are some useful resources which give more information about Duty of Candour and processes for applying it.
- Trustwide Duty of Candour process
- Duty of Candour guidance for providers
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All regulated healthcare professionals have a personal professional duty of candour for which they are personally accountable. Below is a link to the joint medical/nursing guidance on this, other professions have similar guidance that can be found on their relevant regulators website.
- Openess and Honesty Professional Duty of Candour
- Regulation 20 document
- Duty of Candour Policy - SA13
- Duty of Candour initial template letter for PSLR
- Duty of Candour initial template letter non PSLR
Duty of Candour queries
Please contact your Divisional risk and governance lead initially. The Patient Safety Team will be establishing Duty of Candour clinics during the autumn. Please return to this page for more details.